Close to Home Photography Exhibition by Artist Rob Stone

For the month of January, Gallery 1855 at Davis Cemetery (820 Pole Line Rd, Davis) will feature a selection from Rob Stone’s ongoing photographic project Close To Home, an exploration of the beauty that is hidden in plain site inside the city limits of his hometown, Davis, CA.  It is a visual meditation on the intersection of community and nature and our connection to the natural world. A special opening reception will be held January 4, 2015 from 1-4:00pm.

“Growing up in the Central Valley in Northern California I witnessed the disappearance of the native landscape displaced by corporate agriculture and suburban sprawl.  Beginning in the mid-eighties a movement headed by local Davis activists and developers recreated and reintroduced the native terrain and its inhabitants into a new community living space. Water, islands, wetlands and trees now make up a natural landscape and ecosystem that didn’t exist 20 years ago. While most landscapes are about what nature builds, here we have an environs that are a product of developers, city planners and suburbanites who designed a community living space where there were only flatlands before. They let the forces of wind, water and all things living fill in the canvas of what I now explore as an artist.”

 Rob Stone was trained as a still photographer, cinematographer and producer/director in television at the University of California, Davis, in the late 1970s. During his tenure at UCD, he directed a number of award-winning documentaries focused on the challenges faced by the disabled in our culture.  Rob’s interest in developing a narrative through still photography emerged from these early projects.  Over the past 20 years, he has explored the natural world in the remote wilderness through his landscape photography.  In the last three years, his focus has shifted to neighborhood landscapes in his project Close To Home.

 The image entitled “Close To Home” was recognized as Best of Show in the juried competition “Vision” by the Sacramento Fine Arts Center in 2012.  It was a Bell Ringer for the KVIE Auction that same year.  Several other images from the Close To Home portfolio have been exhibited at The Viewpoint Gallery in Sacramento.

 Rob’s work can be found on the Stone Photography website, www.arstonephotography.com, and at the Stone Photography Studio, shared with his wife, Andrea.  His award-winning landscape work has been exhibited in a number of venues and galleries in Northern California, including The Viewpoint Gallery and the Blue Line Gallery in Roseville, CA. 

 In October 2013, Rob was recognized as a Black And White Spider Awards nominee for his architectural image, “Frank Gehry’s House.”  He is represented by Art Consulting Services (Sacramento, CA) and Kinzelman Art Consulting (Houston, TX) for his abstract architectural images.